How does Stanford's quarter system affect internship opportunities?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

I know that Harvard and MIT students can take 3-4 week internships over winter break (usually at tech/finance companies), as Harvard’s break extends 3 weeks into January, and MIT has the 4-week IAP. I like the idea of taking winternships for experiencing two different company cultures during the year (one summer, one winter).

Stanford, however, has a much shorter winter break that ends the first week of January. I’d assume that no company has a winternship program that fits Stanford’s schedule. So my questions to Stanford students / alums are:

  1. Do you feel disappointed about the lack of winternship opportunities? How do you make up for it?
  2. How often do Stanford students take a quarter off for an internship?
  3. How often do Stanford students take part-time jobs (while classes are in session) at the nearby tech companies?
2

Graduating senior here, these are my thoughts based off of the last four years of experiences:

  1. No disappointment. Winter break is often used to start looking for summer internships, exploring some interests without them being part of a class (e.g. startups, app creation, etc.). It's a good time to visit friends and family. Winter quarter is notorious as the roughest and getting a break beforehand is one way of preventing burnout. Having a shorter winter means a longer summer to work. Some people even work two jobs in summer (one for a month and then another for a month or so). You could certainly still get exposure to two companies per year.
  2. Rarely I'd guess (though I believe Stanford has a pretty flexible policy if you did want to take a quarter off). I don't know anyone whose done it. It's worth noting that when students go abroad many do take an "academic internship." You get course credit to do an internship (some work in politics, others in law, others intern at bakeries in Paris). You take courses as well of course and the internship is just part-time. You can also work part-time (do a part-time internship) during normal quarters though those aren't typically for course credit.
  3. It's hard to estimate numbers on part-time jobs. I've had one ranging 10-20hrs/week for almost my entire time here. With that said, I'm not in the tech field and of my tech friends most don't work during the school year. Most students who work do it on campus. Lab work and TA work (which actually pays quite well in CS!), are pretty common. Cars aren't allowed freshman year.

I will say that the quarter system does make it a bit frustrating for summer internships. Some internships have set start dates in May and we’re still in school then. With that said though, I love the quarter system and imagine that the semester one would be frustrating. If you’re interested in tech then I wouldn’t expect finding summer internships to be a problem. Our career fairs are almost all tech-oriented. There are incredible opportunities and the nearby large tech companies treat their interns pretty great. Do your laundry? Have a gym? Free meals? Of course it’s all in the name of bribing you to be at work longer, but it’s still nice. It’s also nice taking an intro CS course and having Zuckerberg just show up to lecture.

3

Current upperclassman:


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  1. Do you feel disappointed about the lack of winternship opportunities? How do you make up for it?

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Nope, never even thought about doing an internship over winter break until just now, and I wouldn’t want to anyways. A four week job doesn’t sound very interesting; time better spent traveling/visiting family and taking a break.

How to make up for it? I’m not convinced it is detrimental to miss out on a 3-4 week internship. But I suppose I’d make up for it by ensuring I have a great 3 month summer internship.


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  1. How often do Stanford students take a quarter off for an internship?

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It’s not hard to take a quarter off at all. A lot of people I know take spring or fall quarter off alongside the summer to have a 6 month internship. I can’t say how frequent this is overall, though.


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  1. How often do Stanford students take part-time jobs (while classes are in session) at the nearby tech companies?

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No idea. Can’t imagine this is super frequent, although one of my friends worked for Apple during part of the school year while taking classes (although I think he did so from his dorm). Most students I know who work part time don’t work off campus, because that would be time consuming to commute back and forth.